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[Flying Weasel]

FW, I'm going to disagree with you on TMC.  Maybe "monster" was too strong but I was comparing to other teams in the Great Lakes which is what is relevant to their status at the moment.

I responded to what you wrote, but perhaps not to what you meant.  You didn't say it was a monster schedule compared to other GL teams, nor did you say it was a monster schedule on paper before the season started.  Those are different claims, neither of which I was responding to, so you need to read my response in that light.  And one of my points was that their SOS is reflective of the fact that there's a lot of sub .500 teams in there.  I wasn't blaming Thomas More for that and it's unfortunate that some opponents are worse than anticipated, but that's not something that a change to the SOS calculation would fix directly.  Teams records are their records and if an opponent under-performs, there's nothing the SOS calculation can do about that (e.g. ignore this year's win pct. and use the previous year's record).

[Flying Weasel]

(2) I think Messiah's current SOS cuts the other way.  FW's point, if I understand it correctly, was that because he didn't use the numbers to evaluate the schedule and just eyeballed the thing, he underestimated Messiah's SOS.  But ETown, Rowan, W&L, Lycoming having better years means that Messiah's SOS should still be strong - so the metric is doing its job.

I'm glad you made this point because I really should have included the same sentiment in my post about their SOS on the other thread.  I agree that the math can reign-in our subjectivity when it's off-base.

As the season moved along I knew their SOS wasn't going to be as bad as feared before the season and in the opening weeks, but I still never expected it to be so high which prompted me to actually do the math myself.  I still think it is inflated due to the home/away multipliers, but there line-up of opponents is pretty decent.  The jury is still out on E-town and if their 15-1-1 mark flatters them (time might tell), that's another way in which Messiah's SOS may be a little inflated as well.

Messiah's problem is they haven't won against any of their top opponents, not that they've played a weak schedule.

[Flying Weasel]

However, I don't know if I agree as much on setting a floor for cupcakes.  Yes, 2-14-0 (0.125) versus 4-12-0 (0.25) versus 6-10-0 (0.375) might all seem easy to top teams, but doesn't that balance out on the other end?  I mean, is it that much tougher to play 12-4-0 (0.750) versus 14-2-0 (0.875) versus 16-0-0 (1.000)?  Maybe, but aren't those small differences in degree probably the same as on the low end?  So wouldn't we need to do the same thing for good teams?  I wonder if it would skew things if we artificially bump the teams with bad win percentages without capping good win percentages.  The more I think about trying to calculate a more accurate home-versus-away multiplier, the more I think that's probably the better solution.

As to "setting a floor for cupcakes", I continue to think this is a very important improvement.  I, like you, had also thought about whethere there'd be merit in doing the same thing at the high end, but I think not.  It's the high end that we are really interested in, not the low end.  That's why I think we need to remove the low end from the discussion.  In the end, the NCAA's Division III SOS calculation exists for the sole purpose of helping decide who gets selected for the tournament. It's not like the SOS that Massey and Bennett Rank compute prior to the season and are out there all season long as a more informational piece of data.  Given that at-large selections are the very specific and lone purpose of the SOS, I find the low end of team's schedules to be irrelevant to the discussion.

Let me work through a hypothetical.

Team A has played five (05) teams with .700 winnng pct. and higher; Team B has played only three (03) teams with .700 winning pct. and higher; Team C had not played a single team over .650.
     ● Team A's top opponents: 13-2-0, 12-1-2, 11-3-0, 9-2-3 and 10-4-1 (a combined .795 win pct.);
     ● Team B's top opponents: 11-2-2, 10-3-1, and 8-2-4 (a combined .756 win pct.)
     ● Team C's top opponents: 9-4-2 and 9-5-0 (none over .700)
Who has challeneged themselves more?  Who has played more tournament-caliber teams?  Who would you expect to have the higher SOS?  Who should have the higher SOS?

Well, unfortuntely, Team A had two opponents with sub-.200 winning pct. and another two sub-.400 teams.  Team B had two sub-.400 opponents.
     ● Team A's cupcakes: 1-13-2, 2-11-1, 4-10-1, 4-8-3
     ● Team B's cupcakes: 4-9-2, 5-8-1
     ● Team C's cupcakes: none under .400 (worst opponents: 6-7-1, 7-8-0)

In between their top opponents and cupcakes, Teams A and B have a number of comparable opponents in the .450 to .650 range (that give neither team an advantage or disadvantage over the other). All of Team C's opponents fall in the .450 to .667 range. 

The effect of the two sub-.200 teams, negates the two more over-.750 opponents that Team A has compared to Team B and results in Team A having a lower SOS than Team B.  (And yes, I have punched these numbers into a spreadhseet to confirm the math could come out this way, ignoring home/away multipliers and OOWP).  Team C, with no cupcakes and no top-level teams, comes out with the highest SOS as Team B is hurt by their two sub-.400 opponents.

A "cupcake threshhold" enables a comparison of the middle to top end of team's schedules which are where we really find out if teams challenged themselves.  Team C did not challenge themselves at a level appropriate for a tournament aspiring team. Team B did somewhat and Team A really did.  But the SOS math came out reversed. 

A "cupcake threshold" of .300 or greater would have given Team A the highest SOS.  However, in the hypothetical I created, a threshold of .500 would be required to get Team B a higher SOS than Team C, but Team C is the most unrealistic of the three hypothetical teams.  But as the SOS is currently calculated, Team A and B, who did challenge themselves, end up with lower SOS (because of a number of weak opponents) while simultaneously making it tougher for themselves to achieve a high win pct.  Team C gets the highest SOS and had the easiest road to a impressive win pct. of the three.  That doesn't seem right or fair.  Now, the wins versus ranked is where Team C will be found out, but as I said Team C is the least realistic of the hypotheticals and are included more to provide a "baseline" of sorts to illustrate how a few cupcakes can more than negate, not merely negate, the tough opponents on one's schedule. And all this to support my contention that the SOS is not really telling us who was most challenged/tested.

[PaulNewman]

FW, I'm going to disagree with you on TMC.  Maybe "monster" was too strong but I was comparing to other teams in the Great Lakes which is what is relevant to their status at the moment.

I responded to what you wrote, but perhaps not to what you meant.  You didn't say it was a monster schedule compared to other GL teams, nor did you say it was a monster schedule on paper before the season started.  Those are different claims, neither of which I was responding to, so you need to read my response in that light.  And one of my points was that their SOS is reflective of the fact that there's a lot of sub .500 teams in there.  I wasn't blaming Thomas More for that and it's unfortunate that some opponents are worse than anticipated, but that's not something that a change to the SOS calculation would fix directly.  Teams records are their records and if an opponent under-performs, there's nothing the SOS calculation can do about that (e.g. ignore this year's win pct. and use the previous year's record).

Well, now I'm sure what you're reacting to.  Just the words "monster schedule"?  Given the discussion and the context, and knowing that I was comparing their schedule to the impression one gets (and that they are stuck with), I was giving my impression that there is a major divergence.  I'm pretty familiar with the recent history of all the teams listed, and 4 very tough games, and 7 total very solid to tough non-conference games, for me, adds up to a pretty darn impressive schedule. 

Not only do I think .513 is not nearly representative of their true strength of schedule, and knowing that they are going to be punished further over the next couple of weeks most likely as the rest of the conference gets added (although Grove Cty and Geneva I think have decent records), I was using TMC as an example who I think many here would agree (based on results so far) would be very much deserving a Pool C on the merits if by chance they did not get the AQ.

[Flying Weasel]

In my opinion, I thought "monster schedule" was over the top.  Said so. Said why. Then moved on to other points I wanted to make, most of which concur, not disagree, with your points.  Never imagined it would generate this back-and-forth. Nothing personal.  Thought I was entitled to my opinion as you are yours. I am totally befuddled as to why you seem to think there may be some underlying tension between us. We may misunderstand each other (seemingly often of late), but for me there's nothing more to it than that.

You say .513 is not representative of TMC's strength of schedule.  Well, most of what I have posted concurs with that viewpoint.  I'm saying that a few really bad teams unfairly skews the SOS, I mentioned I thought some of TMC's sub-.500 opponents are likely better than RHIT's over-.500 Greenville, etc. And the inference was that Thomas More probably merited being ahead of at least RHIT.  You see, for the most part I am not disagreeing with you.  I have said for years that the SOS is flawed.  I have been one of the few to proposed some relatively simple tweaks to the SOS calculations that I think would reduce its flawed outcomes.  I think we have much more common ground than your responses/reactions to my posts seem to acknowledge.  And that's confusing to me.

[PaulNewman]

In my opinion, I thought "monster schedule" was over the top.  Said so. Said why. Then moved on to other points I wanted to make, most of which concur, not disagree, with your points.  Never imagined it would generate this back-and-forth. Nothing personal.  Thought I was entitled to my opinion as you are yours. I am totally befuddled as to why you seem to think there may be some underlying tension between us. We may misunderstand each other (seemingly often of late), but for me there's nothing more to it than that.

You say .513 is not representative of TMC's strength of schedule.  Well, most of what I have posted concurs with that viewpoint.  I'm saying that a few really bad teams unfairly skews the SOS, I mentioned I thought some of TMC's sub-.500 opponents are likely better than RHIT's over-.500 Greenville, etc. And the inference was that Thomas More probably merited being ahead of at least RHIT.  You see, for the most part I am not disagreeing with you.  I have said for years that the SOS is flawed.  I have been one of the few to proposed some relatively simple tweaks to the SOS calculations that I think would reduce its flawed outcomes.  I think we have much more common ground than your responses/reactions to my posts seem to acknowledge.  And that's confusing to me.

LOL, I'm sorry.  I am as confused as you are.  How could I suggest and/or acknowledge that I think we have a lot of common ground any more than starting the day telling you I agreed with your long post from late last night in its entirety 100%?  I also went back to look at the context of my "monster" reference, and, in addition to the overall context of the point of my overall post, you'll see just 2 sentences down in the very same paragraph that I actually did directly tie my description into the Great Lakes by stating my opinion, that with possible exception of DePauw, I felt TMC's schedule is the toughest in the GL region.